Paper Flowers
by suncityblues
Summary: In which a cat goes missing and Conrad is butt-hurt. Worth & Conrad.


**Title:** Paper Flowers  
**Characters**: Worth, Conrad, some lady and her cat and a bum.  
**Rating**: Work safe

So this is my gift to the lovely Caco for winning some awards in the HiNaBN fan awards. I'm not a hundred percent happy with how it turned out so I might write a different one at some later date. HM.

Anyway super special magical wonderful awesome thank you to my beta, violent_aki on LJ.

* * *

="=

You haven't heard from him in almost three weeks, ever since a worse-than-usual argument that started when he murdered your neighbor's cat while you were supposed to be watching it.

And sure, he didn't kill it literally but he might as well have, because who the hell thinks it's a good idea to let a fat ass declawed house cat out of a building in the middle of a city?

Naturally, Worth refused to acknowledge he was at fault in any way, saying he would have noticed "a goddamn cat following him" or even that it's dead, because, according to him, "cats always find their way back."

You don't know how he managed to get into medical school in the first place, but you do know he did the world a favor by dropping out because that is the stupidest thing you've ever heard. And you told him that, in so, so many words.

-"-

You tell yourself this whole thing with the cat and the yelling is a blessing in disguise. The lever to finally push you apart from him for good. No more going back, no more fighting, no more dirty fingernails, or unwashed clothes. No more Worth.

You're free.

And you think:  
Good.  
Great, wonderful.  
You don't even like him that much, anyway.  
And maybe you'll move to Iceland and meet a nice vampire girl named Aðalbjörg and fall in love and have little vampire kids who will cry and poop all over themselves and you will be a really happy family and then a few years later, after he's dead, you'll go and piss on Worth's grave.

And you think:  
Why hasn't he called?

And you're checking your cellphone for the nine hundredth time this hour, but the only thing there is an unopened voicemail from your mother that you haven't worked up the courage to listen to yet.

Now, you're debating going back to your place because you're not getting any work done and the barista at this café seems to be trying to kill you with sheer force of will and burnt smelling coffee.

And even when Worth's not there he's still distracting you.

Which is just like him.

But it's too early to go home, you have at least another few hours until the sun rises and you don't want to waste them; so you pack up your laptop and walk out into the park across the street.

="=

The air is humid and sweet smelling, like cut grass, like summertime, like little kids on porch swings and blooming window boxes and fireflies.

You're wandering around the park with no particular location in mind. Just somewhere. Anywhere that isn't back the way you came.

And you feel oddly liberated, in the way only someone who couldn't die or age could. True wandering, that's what you'll call it. You feel the weight of weightlessness. You can do anything you want. You don't need a job because you don't need a living because you're not alive. You don't need a house or a car or clothes or modesty or anything. There is nothing keeping you here. There is nothing keeping you anywhere.

You don't have to do anything for anyone ever again because there are no societal repercussions that can affect you. You are untouchable, enlightened, knocking your knee on the stone basin around a fountain.

And that hurts.

You make a rather undignified yelping noise, which apparently startled a homeless man who was fishing for coins on the other side, because he started loudly mumbling something you had no hope of understanding and very little interest in, before skulking away.

So maybe you're not all that free or enlightened but you can't help hoping, sometimes.

Instead all you have is a kind of ennui that makes you feel like someone is squeezing your heart and a lingering attachment to the biggest asshole you've ever met.

And so you sit down on the edge of the fountain, and look at the figure in the middle, a woman endlessly pouring water, oblivious to all the pigeon shit running down the sides of her face and shoulders.

You're a little bit jealous, in a way.

And you figure that while you're here you might as well make a wish, but when you throw the nickel in you can't think of anything and then it's too late and the coin has already sunk to the bottom.

So you lament your lost coin and rub your bruised knee, and you do what you do best, which is sulk.

-"-

You don't know how long you'd been sitting there before you see it.

Your neighbor's cat, properly known as Mr. Choochoo, which you think would be enough to make any cat run away, just sitting there, looking at you like you were the most boring person in the whole wide world.

You suspect it learned that look from Worth.

Your heart does a backflip anyway.

The cat looks fine, its little pink collar is still intact and it's still fat, albeit less so, and fluffy and bright orange.

If it could, it would probably be laughing at you.

-"-

It takes you an hour and and arm full of scratches before you get the cat back to the apartment building but you do and you're marginally proud of yourself for it.

The doorman doesn't even raise an eyebrow, and you're not sure whether to be grateful for that or pissed off.

He says, "Your -ah- friend, came by looking for you. I sent him up. And hey, isn't that the cat that jumped off the fire escape a few weeks ago?"

But you're ignoring him because he gets paid to stand around in a stupid hat and so you owe him nothing, and there are other much more important matters to attend to, besides.

By which you mean the cat, of course, and not Worth.

Definitely not Worth.

-"-

He is asleep outside your door.

That would be cute or endearing if it had been anyone else but since it's Worth he just looks more homeless than usual.

He wakes up when he hears your neighbor scream. She didn't even seem to mind that it was so early in the morning the sun was only just peeking on the horizon, she was so happy.

And you would be happy for her too, because she's a widow and always complaining that none of her kids call and you have the sneaking suspicion that Mr. Choochoo is her closest friend, but you feel Worth's I-told-you-so look burning into the back of your skull and, well, that just ruins everything.

It's so typical for him to get all the gloating rights and you to get all the work.

-"-

On the way inside he goes about demanding a key because he was waiting outside your place for way too long, which you know was only twenty minutes maximum, because that's his standard waiting time.

And you take a moment from being disgusted in yourself for knowing that to tell him, "A. it will never happen and B. you shouldn't be around my apartment anyway, you stalker."

He's putting his hands up in an overly dramatic gesture your mom sometimes uses, telling you he's just helping the needy, being a good Samaritan and all, since you must be running out of blood by now and you're too chicken shit to ask for more.

And you both know it's a flimsy excuse and you tell him so and he kicks you and you punch him and then you are kissing.

And then you are happy.

-"-

III

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, "is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

3

-Stephen Crane

-"-

* * *

For some reason when I think where hinabn takes place I usually imagine Savannah, Georgia. I guess because of all those parks and terraces and whatnot.

Anyway, I'm sitting outside right now, on my computer, with a fan blowing on me and drinking coffee. I'm pretty sure I just kicked summer in the face. And I liked it.


End file.
